


His Brother's Keeper

by karrenia_rune



Category: Heroes (TV)
Genre: 2007, Gen, Yuletide New Year's Resolutions Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-27
Updated: 2013-05-27
Packaged: 2017-12-13 04:22:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/819922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karrenia_rune/pseuds/karrenia_rune
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter and Nathan's relationship in all it's twist and turns.</p>
            </blockquote>





	His Brother's Keeper

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Eisoj5](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eisoj5/gifts).



Disclaimer: Heroes is the creation of Tim Kring and NBC Television, it is not mine.

His younger brother had pulled any number of crazy stunts in their youth and much later on during his rather turbulent adolescence, Nathan Petrelli had to admit that all this crazy talk about having special powers and being able to fly would be so much either to dismiss as just that, crazy talk. 

Unfortunately, Peter believed in it, believed to the extent that it was all he could ever talk about, all he could think about, every blessed waking, sleeping, breathing moment. And Nathan would be damned before he allowed himself to simply write off his brother as a mental case.

Nathan tried to bury much of his concern in his work, but however much he tried, some things just refused to remain buried. As he sorted through and dealt with the memos and paperwork on his desk, taking and answering phone calls from his campaign volunteers, Nathan sighed and reached up to rub at his eyes with the back of his hands, when his brother, Peter, strolled into the office as casually as if nothing dangerous or weird had ever occurred in the past handful of weeks.

"You got some nerve, showing up here like this," Nathan griped, mingled affection and gruffness in his voice. "You know I'm not the most emotive of guys, but, Peter, holy hell, am I glad to see you, alive and well!"

"Yeah, Nathan, I, I really don't where to begin. I've been, busy with a lot of stuff, stuff I can't really get into at the moment....." Peter trailed off awkwardly shuffling his feet on the floor with his hands stuffed into the pocket of his denim jeans. 

Nathan waited him out, content just to let Peter take whatever he had come to say at his own pace. Say what you would about the current strained situation, he knew his brother better than anyone, and one thing you knew about Peter Petrelli, you didn't push or force him to go a direction he didn't wish to go, not without giving him space to make up his own mind. "That," Nathan thought in the back of his mind, "was definitely that the Petrelli brothers had in common.'

"How have you been?" Peter asked suddenly. 

Nathan got up from behind his desk came around to where Peter stood and strolled over to clasp his brother in a tight embrace. "Fine, but worried as hell about you. You gave us all quite a scare, your mother might never forgive me, or us, if I didn't do something about it, you know?"

Peter tensed up, and then just as suddenly relaxed, Nathan could actually feel the tension and rigid feeling in Peter's body drain out of him; Nathan let him go and walked back around to his chair, inviting Peter to take the sat facing his. Peter sighed and sat down.

"I think Mom is the least of our worries right now," Peter sighed as he brushed back a wisp of dark hair out of his eyes. "Did you read the morning paper this morning?"

"Yeah, is that why you've come back? You staying for good this time?"

"I don't know if I can. Things have been really weird of late. I met this guy, he's been teaching me stuff, teaching me how to control it." Peter went silent chewing over what and how he should say what was coming next. In the back of his mind, maybe, just maybe the dread and reluctance he had felt about coming home to New York and his family, did actually have something to do with his own ability to understand what was happening to him. 

He had been and still was a nurse, he had read the good Dr. Suresh's book on genetics and stuff, that did not mean that he totally understood what was happening inside of him these days. "Tell, Mom and the kids, that I love them, that's why I can't come home right away. I still need to figure some things out. 

"Peter, I don't need to know any of that," Nathan replied shaking his head, "You're obviously dealing with a lot right now, just tell me one thing, how can I help?"

"That article, do you think anyone will take any of that seriously? I mean, we both know by now, that this stuff having to do with the `superhuman' gene is real." Peter laughed, it was an uncomfortable and the wry half-smile did not reach his eyes. "Even if some of us, who shall remain nameless, would very much like for it not to be, if you know what I mean?"

"Damn it," Nathan replied. "Okay, okay, I give. I take it you want me to do so damage control, try and contain the situation. I can do that, but what about you?"

"I don't know? Nathan, I know how much this is hurting you. How much you want to be able to help me." Peter heaved another sigh and this time when he brushed the dangling lock of hair from his eyes it came away damp with tears. "I love you, man,, really I do, and it means a lot that you want to help, but not right now, please."

Nathan did not like this, not in the least, but he understood enough of what Peter was saying with and without words, to let it go, for now, and do what he could about it later.

"Where will you be? Where I can reach you if I have to?" Nathan asked instead.

"Around," Peter said wistfully. "I'll keep in touch."

Nathan straightened up in his chair. "Damn right . If you don't I'd be tempted to file a missing persons report with the NYPD, or hire my own posse to go out looking for you."

"Hah!" replied Peter leaning forward in his chair. 

`Speaking of our family, you know that if you hadn't shown up Mom would have disowned the both of us by default?" Nathan offered his own trademarked reassuring smile, but it was that actually was sincere, Peter found both mildly amusing and reassuring.

"Okay, okay," Peter replied, smiling, "We can't have Mom disowning us, then where would we be? I promise to be a good boy from now on, and to keep in touch. Fair enough?"

"In lieu of anything better, I'll take what I can get," replied Nathan with a hand outstretched to seal the bargain which Peter took and shook in gratitude and a great deal of relief. "Thanks, Man, for everything."


End file.
